Products/Software

Ajay Bam says we all know Americans love their trucks. He said in a news release that he also believes authentic video reviews from everyday drivers “have a massive impact on the buying decision process.”

“Therefore, we wanted to see if there was a (correlation) between the percentage of videos posted and the percentage of vehicles sold,” said Bam, who is co-founder and chief executive officer of Vyrill, a user-generated video content (UGVC), video discovery, analytic, licensing and content marketing platform powered by proprietary AI technology to enable social commerce and product marketing.

Vyrill has released what it says is first-of-its-kind auto research focused on UGVC. The company evaluated organic and paid non-branded light-truck videos that consumers created during the first half of 2018.

The findings identified the percentage of authentic (non-paid) influencer videos produced for each of the major light-truck brands in the United States.

The findings showed that the Ford F-150 is not only the leader when it comes to sales, but also in Americans posting videos about their favorite truck.

In fact, 41 percent of all light-truck UGVC posted in the first half of 2018 was for the Ford F-150. This is approximately nine points higher than Ford’s sales volume percentage.

“As we are tracking information for the auto category we see a similar correlation between UGVC and sales volume against all vehicle types," Bam said.

Vyrill’s artificial intelligence tool can analyze moving images, audio and text data from consumer generated videos to discern insights. With this advanced technology, Vyrill can help brands filter through the clutter of social videos and deliver what it says are easy-to-understand metrics and insights including:

With this data, Vyrill scored the video for brand safety and diversity, which the company says can allow brands to save time and money and make better, more informed marketing decisions.

Vyrill said, "it opens the door to new opportunities for brands including the ability to post brand safe user-generated video content, such as reviews or testimonials, and automatically upload them to product pages on highly trafficked sites like Amazon to drive product conversion."

A new company is promising to “turn the traditional ridesharing business model on its head,” concentrating on factors such as safety and hospitality, along with passengers’ “in-car experience.”

The company, Alto, enters the on-demand rideshare market with $14.5 million from two rounds of funding and has several investment partners, but the new company wants those who use traditional ridesharing services to notice how it is different from traditional ridesharing companies.

Alto employs its drivers and manages a dedicated fleet. The service is a members-only experience. Members control the in-car experience, from the music to climate.

In the areas of safety and hospitality, Alto’s employee drivers are rigorously vetted, trained and performance-managed. The company’s fleet features new, 5-star-crash-rated SUVs, which it cleans and maintains daily. With the touch of Alto’s app, the Alto car lights up for easy identification as a member approaches. To protect drivers, the app notifies the drivers when their passenger is in range, so the drivers can unlock their doors only for their customers.

“I’m really excited about the potential to disrupt the disruptors in mobility,” says Alto chief executive officer Will Coleman. Alto plans to expand to more cities in 2019 and reach the national level by 2020.

Alto’s investment partners include Road Ventures and Frog Ventures, which designed Alto’s in-car experience and app. The company will initiate another fundraising round this spring for growth and expansion.

Reviver Auto recently received good news for drivers in the Motor City and elsewhere in the Great Lake State who are interested in using digital license plates.

The company noted on Thursday that the Michigan legislature has passed a bill (Public Act 656 of 2018) enabling digital license plate technology in the state. Reviver Auto highlighted this new technology that has the potential to generate efficiencies and benefits for consumers, businesses and the state, can offer a digital alternative to today’s 125-year-old stamped metal license.

The creator of the Rplate added that it will work in conjunction with newly elected Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to roll the plates out to interested users.

“We are proud to have worked closely with the department of state and Secretary Benson, as well as the Michigan legislature and other public officials, to pass this pioneering bill in the state that invented the automotive industry,” said Reviver Auto co-founder and chief executive officer Neville Boston.

“We look forward to continuing our great working relationship with the state of Michigan, to not only contribute to a more connected community and bring significant benefits to its citizens and businesses, but to also help fuel the innovation fire right here in the core of the global automotive industry,” Boston continued.

The Rplate, which launched on the roads in California last June, is designed to transform today’s stamped metal license plate into a sleek, digital, high-definition display and that can offer a platform to simplify daily life with vast potential for future innovation.

The Rplate’s connected car platform can automate vehicle renewals, replacing legacy stickers with digital decals, and can add new levels of personalization to the license plate, including promoting charitable causes, passion for a sports team, or even a child’s academic/athletic achievements. The Rplate also can enable stolen vehicle and plate detached information, as well as geo-fencing capabilities for business and/or governmental entities.

The company pointed out Michigan is the first state in the nation to enact a law to allow implementation of digital license plates, helping to open up a digital gateway to a world of innovation opportunities — from Smart Cities initiatives to autonomous vehicle technology — while also offering new efficiencies for consumers such as simplifying and expediting the process for renewing automobile registration.

The legislation coincides with the upgrading of internal systems at Michigan’s Department of State which will provide effortless integration with the Rplate technology. Reviver Auto and the Secretary of State’s office are eager to partner with Michigan companies and organizations to bring the digital license plates to all interested individuals.

Reviver Auto is also partnering with Michigan-based The Pink Fund to create a Pink Fund-branded digital license plate, as well as digital Pink Fund logos for the Rplate, all of which will help raise funds to support the organization’s mission of providing financial support to help meet basic needs, decrease stress levels and allow breast cancer patients in active treatment to focus on healing while improving survivorship outcomes.

In addition to Michigan, the Rplate, which is currently on the road in California, is anticipated to expand into new states in 2019.

The company noted the use of digital license plates is fully authorized for Arizona, and legislation has been passed in Texas and Florida. Reviver Auto said that Washington State will conduct a digital license plate study.

In addition, Reviver Auto has started its international growth with an initial program in Dubai, UAE for a proof of concept in partnership with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority.

The Rplate is available in California through participating dealerships, shops such as Al & Ed’s Autosound, and for pre-order at the .

It’s a potential clash that can lead to frustration for both potential buyers and dealerships — haggling over what a trade might be worth.

According to a recent survey conducted by Black Book, consumers believe a vehicle trade-in quote that’s far from expectations remains the second-most likely reason to kill a deal. Editors acknowledged the trade-in process remains largely inefficient, which is why Black Book and The Appraisal Lane have teamed up to give consumers what the company say is an enhanced trade-in experience while improving dealer efficiencies.

The Appraisal Lane launched a mobile app — accessible from dealer websites and the app store — providing consumers with cash offers for their trades, in minutes, from a live team of experts. With this new platform, consumers can start their research with Black Book’s precision-based values to get the most market-reflective price range for their used vehicle.

When ready to transact, individuals can connect in real-time with The Appraisal Lane by answering simple condition questions, uploading photos of their vehicle and getting a guaranteed offer. The offer is redeemable at a participating dealer as money toward the purchase of a replacement vehicle, or as cash in hand.

The Appraisal Lane team utilizes Black Book valuation data in conjunction with market insights and deep appraisal knowledge across all makes and models to assess each used vehicle on its own merit and provides consumers with the best possible cash offer.

Real time communication between consumers and a live team of appraisers can give consumers the confidence and transparency that they have been missing in current online vehicle valuation processes.

“Black Book and The Appraisal Lane share the same fundamentals of combining data science with human touch to most accurately determine a vehicle’s value,” said Jared Kalfus, executive vice president of revenue for Black Book.

“Our values, coupled with The Appraisal Lane’s live cash offers, effectively put the dealership trade-in process right in the palm of a consumer’s hand,” Kalfus continued. “Dealers that offer this experience are poised to improve customer engagement, increase business, and stand apart from the competition.”

Jeff Risner, a 30-year auto industry veteran, and co-founder and chief executive officer of The Appraisal Lane, says the launch his company’s consumer app was designed to improve a process that has been largely underserved by technology.

“There are two universal truths in our industry,” Risner said. “Every used car is as unique as the person driving it, and a used car is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, at any given time. These truths involve human interaction — a live appraisal and a cash offer from experts who incorporate quality vehicle values in their toolset.

“When you use technology to connect with consumers in real-time and make them a fundamental part of the process, you provide an exceptional trade-in experience and create a much deeper level of engagement before they visit the dealership,” Risner continued.

Dealers currently use The Appraisal Lane’s industry products to manage, move, and source inventory and are now utilizing the company’s consumer app to streamline the trade-in process, improve customer satisfaction and make more retail deals.

Launched a little more than three years ago, The Appraisal Lane community consists of more than 1,000 members and is growing.

Car buyers are doing more advance research than ever. Because of that, they often know more about the dealership than the dealership knows about them. Connect Automotive Intelligence is a new product that VinSolutions believes will close that gap.

VinSolutions notes in a press release that Connect Automotive Intelligence will help dealers better act on customer engagement and data. The tools will analyze customer communications and behaviors to help dealers find the best opportunities to deliver a more personalized experience.

VinSolutions, currently in the pilot phase, includes three new artificial intelligence-enabled tools for Connect CRM, which is a dealership customer relationship management system:

1. Engagement strength, which measures a salesperson’s interactions with an existing prospect or customer. By tracking a salesperson’s customer interaction frequency, the tool highlights engagement trends and helps managers better visualize how a salesperson is performing in the CRM.

3. Buying Signals, which captures and analyzes shoppers’ online behaviors and distills them to predict shopping personas, shopping preferences and the sense of urgency. Rather than leads coming into the CRM without any context of the prior online shopping behavior, this new enhancement uses known online traffic to increase speed of sale and build trust with the shopper.

“Modern businesses today excel by being more consumer-facing,” Kevin Frye, eCommerce director, Jeff Wyler Automotive Family, said in a press release. “For us, personalizing each customer experience is a high priority. Connect Automotive Intelligence will allow us to deliver a more consumer-facing journey with timely, relevant and personalized communications.”

For new technologies like artificial intelligence to be most effective, VINSolutions says technology integrations must also take place. As part of Cox Automotive, Connect Automotive Intelligence works with products from its sister companies, including Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, vAuto, Dealer.com and Xtime, to streamline workflows, reduce duplicate data entry and ensure dealers get more value from their software investments. Those integrations, which help improve personalization across the entire consumer lifecycle, will also be filtered through these artificial intelligence-enabled enhancements to bring the most opportunity out of the marketplace for dealers.

Connect Automotive Intelligence will be available to view at the NADA convention later this month in San Francisco.

Kelley Blue Book Trade-In Values are now integrated into the Contact At Once! Automotive messaging platform, CAO! Connect.

The integration helps create what CAO says are satisfying connections, and it builds relationships between auto shoppers and dealers by making it easier for consumers to ask questions and get information in the “micro-moments” when they shop — whether on a brand or retailer site, via online advertising, on social media and more.

With the new integration, dealers can pull trusted trade-in valuations into messaging conversations with consumers to help better guide buyer journeys and convert more sales opportunities.

Updated weekly, Kelley Blue Book Trade-In Values show consumers what to expect to receive based on style, condition, mileage, and options of the vehicle when they trade it in to a dealer.

“Giving our customers every piece of information in a quick, efficient manner is the name of the game in today’s highly competitive marketplace,” John Thompson, director of marketing for Montrose Auto Group, said in a news release.

“Every dealer knows that a trade valuation is one of the most compelling actions potential buyers can complete,” said Denise Chudy, general manager, Contact At Once!, a LivePerson company. “Giving dealers who use Kelley Blue Book and CAO! Connect instant access to trade-in values in the conversation flow can help convert more conversations to leads. It also gives consumers visibility to one of the key components of most buying journeys.”

Consumers express frustrations with inconsistencies in pricing and information across platforms, according to a recent study by automotive market research and advisory firm Root & Associates cited in the news release. They want to be able to find these details in a quick, user-friendly way — without the need for an in-person visit before they’re ready. The company says this integration can help.

“Kelley Blue Book Values are the result of massive amounts of data, including actual sales transactions, which are then adjusted for local market conditions and seasonal trends,” Damon Bennett, senior director of syndication for Kelley Blue Book, said in a news release. “Using the CAO! Connect messaging platform with integrated digital retailing tools like our trusted trade-in values can help consumers find information easier, make decisions faster, and build relationships with dealers during the digital phase of the shopping process.’

Real-time translations for more than a dozen languages, which the company says is especially important for dealerships who have multilingual customer bases; and Hot Opportunity Transfers from CAO! Live advisers who respond on the dealer’s behalf and connect salespeople with consumers via messaging once they are ready to purchase, are among other CAO! Connect features.

The new web-based CAO! Connect app, an enhanced agent workspace that helps dealers send messages to consumers from multiple locations, is available to existing Contact At Once! customers at no additional charge.

Gubagoo describes itself as a provider of “conversational commerce” products for automotive dealerships and OEMs.

Now, its customers can use Apple Business Chat, which Gubagoo says is a new way for users to communicate directly with businesses using the native Messages app on iPhone and iPad. The company notes the product helps consumers instantly connect with dealerships through the Messages app and view vehicle inventory, ask vehicle-related questions, book a test drive and schedule a service appointment.

Brad Title, chief executive officer of Gubagoo, said in a news release his company is supporting Apple Business Chat as a new way for automotive dealerships “to interact with millions of iOS users.” He added that automotive dealerships and OEMs that use Gubagoo can sign up to try Apple Business Chat beta.

Gubagoo notes that with Apple Business Chat, all conversations instantly route to Gubagoo’s professional chat specialists, who are available to respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on behalf of the dealership. Customers can always reach a live person and are always in control of whether they share any information with a business.

To start Apple Business Chat, customers can click the “Chat with Messages” button on a Gubagoo-enabled dealership website. A conversation with Gubagoo’s chat specialists will open instantly in the Messages app, and users can respond whenever it is convenient for them.

Gubagoo says Apple Business Chat is available in beta for users and businesses around the world, and is built into iOS 11.3 and higher.

Technology and auction software services company Xcira has received several patents that it says will safeguard technologies currently being applied in the pursuit of what it describes as “evolutionary changes within the auction industry.”

The protected intellectual property includes areas involving artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and adaptive modeling that power dozens of use cases that the company says improve efficiency, add flexibility and reduce conversion times associated with online auction transaction optimization.

The technology covered in these patents protects a range of services, including:

1. Patent 10,096,060: An interest gauge in which participant profiles and asset description information are collected, analyzed, and used to modify the auction process to make the buyers’ and/or sellers’ transactional experience more efficient and effective.

2. Patent 10,134,086: Conversion enhancement within the auction environment such that an entity will analyze participant and asset information and define operational and/or transactional changes for the purpose of achieving optimized conversions.

3. Patent 10,157,417: The monitoring of, and participation in, multiple simultaneous auctions by a remote bidder using a single bidding device.

4. Patent 10,074,120: The facilitation of the physical inspection of an object and the generation of reports resulting from the objective and/or subjective data collected during the inspection.

“As a technology leader, we continue to protect our technological advancements for our worldwide customers who rely on us to not only power their sophisticated businesses, but also provide continued technological differentiation through cutting-edge innovation,” Nancy Rabenold, chief executive officer of Xcira, said in a press release. The company’s products include auction management systems, live auction simulcasts, timed online auctions, automotive condition evaluation tools, floorplan platforms, and mobile bidding applications.

Xcira’s current intellectual property portfolio includes 17 issued patents with more pending.

Auto/Mate Dealership Systems, a dealership management system software company, will open a new office in Chandler, Ariz., late in the second quarter.

Auto/Mate said its expansion to the West Coast is in response to the rapid growth it has experienced since a planned acquisition by CDK Global fell through in March 2018. Since that announcement, dealers’ demand for Auto/Mate's dealership management system has resulted in double-digit growth in new orders and installations, the company said.

Mike Esposito, president and chief executive officer of Auto/Mate, said in a press release that although the company had a record year, it will continue to grow in a controlled manner.

“That said, we’re already in 49 states, and with increased demand in the Midwestern and Western regions, it’s time we had a presence there,” Esposito said.

The West Coast location will allow Auto/Mate to gain access to Arizona’s talent pool. The company will staff the Chandler office primarily with customer support and installation teams, and Auto/Mate anticipates hiring 15 to 20 people by the end of the year. At least seven employees at the Albany, N.Y., office have volunteered to transfer to Arizona.

In New York's capital region, Auto/Mate has been recognized as a "Best Place to Work" nine years straight, and a "Top Workplace" eight years in a row.

Agero Inc., a provider of software-enabled driver assistance services for automotive manufacturers and insurance providers, appointed Bill Gerraughty as chief financial officer, responsible for all finance and facilities functions. Gerraughty’s addition follows the December announcement of new chief operations officer George Horvat.

Reporting to chief executive officer Dave Ferrick, Gerraughty will oversee Agero’s financial strategy. As part of this, Gerraughty will focus on building strong relationships with clients and partners, as well as acting as a strategic partner to the leadership team.

“Bill joins us at an exciting moment in time as we focus on software-led innovation and new business models for our partners—transforming our business and the industry,” Ferrick said in a news release. “With his impressive history in financial stewardship and skill developing creative operational strategies, Bill will be integral in helping us accelerate our growth path and continue to deliver differentiated value for clients.”

Gerraughty comes to the position with nearly 30 years of management and leadership in international finance and operations at private, start-up and publicly traded software and technology companies. He has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, financial modeling and operational planning, in addition to skills in developing strategies that build and sustain growth.

Prior to joining Agero, Gerraughty filled the chief financial officer role at several Boston-area technology companies. Most recently, he was chief financial officer at OnProcess Technology, a tech-enabled services company focused on the aftermarket service supply chain.

Prior to that, he held various finance-related leadership positions at Sparta Systems, NMS Communications, Infinium Software and others. He began his career at PwC in Boston and is currently a board member of LiveData Inc., a provider of real-time operational intelligence solutions for the healthcare and utilities market. A certified public accountant, Bill holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Babson College and a master’s of business administration from the Franklin W. Olin Graduate School of Business.